


Dreamscapes

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-16
Updated: 2012-05-16
Packaged: 2017-11-05 12:06:28
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/406223
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the beach, Charles and Erik are separated by more than miles. That doesn't mean they don't see each other...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dreamscapes

**Author's Note:**

> From my Tumblr, based on [bonbori](bonbori.tumblr.com)'s art. Original [here](http://turtletotem.tumblr.com/post/13729110568/charles-felt-it-was-safe-to-assume-that-the-german).

Charles felt it was safe to assume that the German village, clean and cozy-looking under a veil of snow, was from Erik’s subconscious. The tree they stood beneath, a study in stark black and white, was identical to the one outside Charles’s study window. The paper lanterns — those he couldn’t vouch for.

“Are these yours?” he asked, turning his face up to the buttery lights. “They’re lovely.”

“Why do you keep doing this, Charles?” Erik’s voice was tired, pained.

“I’m not doing a thing, my friend, as I’ve told you before,” Charles said with a half-smile. “This place is a creation of your mind as much as mine. Some part of you wants to be here, or it wouldn’t exist.”

The very first time, weeks ago now, had been Cuba; Charles had dozed off in his own bedroom and ‘woken’ there, back in Erik’s arms on the beach. With tears choking his voice, Erik had begged Charles’s forgiveness, cursed him for a fool and a traitor, and cursed himself for leaving him, all in the same breath. It had been quite a shock to both of them to realize the other was _real_ , that this was neither Erik’s dream nor Charles’s, but somehow both. Even now, Charles knew, Erik didn’t quite believe him. There were moments he didn’t believe it himself, however much his telepathy insisted another mind was present before him.

Since that first night there had been a park bench drifted with brilliant autumn leaves; the deck of a Coast Guard cutter, gray shock blankets around their shoulders; an apple orchard from Charles’s childhood, picnic blanket spread with an assortment of weapons he’d never seen… Sometimes they talked for hours about trivial things — music, architecture, linguistics — sometimes they didn’t talk at all, just walked side by side through their joined minds, surveying the landscape. Usually, like tonight, the atmosphere of the dream was just surreal enough to make any talk of their separation, of their deepest differences, seem unnecessary and out of place.

“I admit,” Charles said now, turning away from the tree to look out across a frozen lake, “I can only assume my ability is constructing this… this link, whatever it is that allows us to do this. But it’s not working alone.” He adjusted the scarf around his neck, trying to keep the chill breeze from slicing down his collar; how curious that the temperature here so nearly reflected the true season, when their subconsciouses could surely have made it warmer if they wished.

“I do like to see you,” Erik murmured behind him. “To see you safe and well. Even if it’s just a dream.”

Safe and well. Charles had not yet had the nerve, or the heart, to tell Erik that as they stood here, Charles’s body was slumped over a desk in the study, legs numb and immobile in their chair.

“Just a dream? Come now, Erik,” he said instead, “a moment ago you were accusing me of dragging you here; now you imply that I’m not even really here myself? You can’t have it both ways, you know.” Recklessly, emboldened by the surreality of the dream, the forgiving glow of the lanterns, he stepped closer to Erik, holding his gaze. “You can’t have me here and not here at the same time.”

“I can’t have you at all.” His voice was quiet, lost, his eyes briefly full of — something — before he turned roughly away, looking out over the snowy village.

Charles stared after him, suddenly very aware of his own heartbeat. He had hoped for so long — spent so many hours next to Erik in cars, across from him at chess boards, mere feet away in hotel rooms, wondering if he dared, wondering if Erik could ever — and then had come the beach, and all hope was lost.

Wasn’t it?

He took a step toward Erik, brushing past a lantern — and was arrested by the realization that the flickering light within them was not fire. He peered closer, steadying it with his hand.

Images moved within the red-gold light. More than images, sensory impressions — sounds, smells, textures — that crept into Charles’s mind as he looked. Memories, unmistakably Erik’s. In this lantern, memories of the two of them in the back of Darwin’s cab. Charles had never dreamed Erik was so aware of Charles’s arm along the back of the seat, barely touching his neck, or the brush of their legs together off and on through the hours — had not even remembered dozing off against Erik’s shoulder partway through the drive, Erik slipping an arm around him to hold him in place.

In each lantern a memory — a touch, a glance, the line of Charles’s throat as he sipped brandy at the chessboard, the brush of Charles’s mind against his own —

_“There’s so much more to you than pain and anger. There’s good, too, I’ve felt it.”_

_“You’re not alone. Erik, you’re not alone.”_

And in some lanterns not memories at all but dreams, silent hopes only half-admitted — Charles’s warmth against him as the sun rose outside the bedroom window — blue eyes dilated with need and fixed on Erik’s as —

Charles tore himself away from that one, breathing deeply, locking his knees to stop their trembling.

“You shouldn’t be here, Charles,” Erik said, voice tight with humiliation disguised as anger.

“Yes I should,” Charles breathed. “I should be anywhere that you are, my friend, and vice versa.” 

He put a hand on Erik’s shoulder, and Erik turned around, his face a study in uncertainty and fragile hope.

“This isn’t real,” he whispered as Charles slid his hands gently up the lapels of his coat, the sides of his face.

“It’s as real as you want it to be,” Charles said, and pulled him down to press their lips together.

The kiss was slow and gentle for perhaps five seconds. Then Erik’s arms wrapped tight around him, pulling him in by the waist, one hand tangling in his hair. Charles rose on his toes, wanting _more, harder, tighter,_ returning the embrace with everything he had, and of course this was real, more real than any other kiss he’d ever had, warmer, sweeter, richer, _better…_

And he knew already that this might be all they ever had, these stolen sleeping moments, these meetings of the mind. He would take what he could get, and kiss and be kissed in the lantern-light, and pray to never wake.


End file.
